Friday, December 26, 2014

Thursday, December 25, 2014

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

Friday, December 05, 2014

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Today has just been lovely.
I started off with waking up late, racing to class with Almina (my best friend here) and no breakfast, only to find out that the professor was half an hour late and had forgotten to inform us.
After 6 hours of class, (a breeze for me after being accustomed to working 8 1/2 hours everyday, including Saturday), I decide that it's time to display my culinary prowess in the kitchen...or what passes for a kitchen in my tiny apartment.
I start off with a simple cabbage only I somehow manage to burn it (I mean, how difficult can it be to cook a cabbage??) and set the smoke alarm off in the mean time.
One would imagine that I'd learned my lesson by then but no... I proceed, in the spirit of Christmas, to make kul kuls for our Christmas party tomorrow. Yes, that's right. As it turns out, the kul kuls that I started out making are nothing close to kul kuls. What they ended up being are bite sized pancakes :/ On the bright side though, they were mistaken for traditional Moroccan AND Russian food and were were gone in sixty seconds at the Christmas party.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

My friend goes through them often because of the stage he's ended up acting on.
I've caught it. Like an illness. And because I have, it's becoming harder and harder to care about anything at all.

Beggars- the weaker species will die out
Empathy- some evolutionary trait
Patterns- We seem to admire things on repeat.
Sex education, condoms & moral science- everything, every single thing we do, pushes us towards the survival of the race. Like any other insect or animal. Like anthills, beehives, plants or parasites.

The only thing that lies between here and death is gratification (of self). Romanticised in all its glory.

My mother's come up with his brilliant new strategy to wake everybody up.

Playing loud Hindi music (with song interpretation) early in the morning.
:/

Here's one gem from today:
If you want to see something, look.
If you want to touch something, touch it.
If you want to smell something, smell it.
Enjoy the experience but know that it's not forever. If it's a flower, for example, it's going to die.
It's not nice, but it's reality.

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Saturday, June 07, 2014

This year's holiday, wonderful as it was had entirely too many airport and train station intervals if you ask me.
That's probably what happens when I plan my own trips, I suppose.

Kempagowda Airport: I forgot my flight ticket. Fortunately, they let me board with just my passportMuscat Airport: I bump into my best friend and we hang while we wait for our flights Paris CDG: Laura, my sister, arrives to pick me up, convinced that I'd get lost the metro ride from the airport to the apartment. :)

Paris CDG: Lufthansa is automating everything, right from getting your boarding pass, by simply scanning your passport, to checking in your luggage, by scanning your boarding pass. It's wonderful, although I can't but help think about the loss of jobs.Munich Airport: I lied at the ticket counter saying I was traveling with a
group when I wasn't (to get a cheaper ticket). As I feared, I got
caught.Munich station: Uneventful (Don't shop at the Hbh station. Shop at the airport supermarket instead, it's cheaper)Paris metro: A man helps me with my heavy suitcase; two older gentlemen help me again when it gets stuck at the gate. I make it to the airport with no further incidences.Muscat Airport: I bump into two friends heading back. We're on the same flight. We meet at the grubby section reserved for grubby Indians for grubby flights to India.Kempagowda Airport: I worry that my suitcase is not on the carousel because I've been caught for not declaring all that cheese and that 1 tulip bulb that I brought back. What really happened was that I'd forgotten which suitcase I was carrying and was looking out for the wrong one.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Three things made me exceedingly happy today.
1) The concept of the pump
2) The fact that the internet exists
3) The quick response to the answer to the following question:
A monk starts at 6AM at the bottom of the mountain and climbing at a random page and resting randomly, he reaches the summit at 6PM. The following morning, he starts descent, along the same path, at 6AM and reaches the base at 6PM. Prove that there was a time on both days, when he was at the exact same spot on the mountain, regardless of how fast or slow he walked. Prove that it is inevitable.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Saturday, March 22, 2014

I've slipped into an addictive sort of lifestyle that's terribly unhealthy. The worst part, like all addictions; I'm enjoying it.
I want to crochet, watch house, study French, learn that French song, sort out production and marketing for Boho Chic- an interesting project for me, read- fiction and non.
Why is this unhealthy? An 81/2 hour work day (not counting traveling), six days a week, doesn't give me enough time to do it all. Sleep compromise, naturally follows. If sleep is compromised, I don't wake up to exercise, no exercise, no sun, I don't meet people. I'm tired all the time and my body hurts, my bones are stiff.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

I've caught myself wondering if life is like a series of Sylvia Plath moments. Not happy. Neither unhappy. A perfect shade of dissatisfied. Things are about 99% right. That 1% like a grain of sand in your sock.

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Part 1
I'm trying to open myself to the idea of being unethical.
While I don't think I'd ever actually be that way, I'm exploring redefining the definition.

1) Who decides what's right and wrong?
A) You, obviously. (or for the those that can't think for themselves, your priest or religious leader)

2) On what basis do you decide?
a) What's best for you? b) What's best for the greatest number? c) What's best for the underdog?

There's no such thing. You make it up as you go along. :)

Part 2
Yesterday I watched 12 years a slave. A difficult movie to watch for me. The atrocities leave me outraged.
A few things from the movie stuck.

- A large enough people thought that slavery was alright.
- There were enough who believed otherwise.

To more good people

Part 3
I was thinking about this.
- The Pharaohs had their slaves
- The Feudal lords had their serfs
- The large corporations have us

Am I a slave? Do I mind? Have the corporations got the balance right? What about the Pharaohs and the Feudal lords?

Part 4
I watched a documentary on Karl Marx yesterday and while I didn't necessarily agree with his purported ideas, he left me inspired.Part 5
In the Mahabharatha, as Draupadi was being stripped, blame was accorded 3 ways and with different weightage. 50% blame on the offender, 25% on the accomplice and 25% on the one who stands by and does nothing.

Part6
So far, there has only been one ideology I've come across that is so encompassing, succinct and ironic at the same time; it fits everything.Jo jeeta, woh hi sikandar

Monday, February 03, 2014

Sunday, February 02, 2014

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work
for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for
the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish
joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on
quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot
tears of noble people.